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"Make money fast" is a title of an electronically forwarded chain letter which became so famous that the term is now used to describe all sorts of chain letters forwarded over the Internet, by e-mail spam or Usenet newsgroups. In anti-spammer slang, the name is often abbreviated "MMF".

History

The original "Make Money Fast" letter was written in 1988 by a person who used the name Dave Rhodes. Biographical details are not certain — in fact, it is not clear that this is the person's actual name — but it is often said Rhodes was a student at Columbia Union College, a Christian college in Maryland, who wrote a text file chain letter titled "Make Money Fast", and uploaded it to a nearby BBS.[1] The scam soon reached the Internet, where it was forwarded over e-mail and Usenet, although it was not until spamming became a major problem in 1994 that "Make money fast" exploded. It became one of the most persistent spams in existence and multiple variations have evolved, often by spammers who change the subject of their email to "This really works!" or "You are a winner!"

It is rumored that Rhodes was eventually convicted and that as part of his sentence he had to create an anti-spam website, but no evidence of this has been found. Sites like this are hoaxes.

Mechanics and legality

The "Make Money Fast" chain letter encouraged readers of the email to forward one dollar in cash to a list of people provided in the text, and to add their own name and address to the bottom of the list after deleting the name and address at the top. Using the theory behind pyramid schemes, the resulting chain of money flowing back and forth would supposedly deliver a reward of thousands of dollars to the ones participating in the chain, as copies of their chain spread and more and more people sent one dollar to their address.

The text of "Make money fast" originally claimed to be "perfectly legal", citing Title 18, U.S. Code, Sections 1302 (which deals with postal lotteries) and 1341 (which deals with mail fraud).http://www.cs.rutgers.edu/~watrous/dave-rhodes.html Ironically, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service cites 18 USC 1302 when it asserts the illegality of chain letters, including MMF:

[Chain letters are] illegal if they request money or other items of value and promise a substantial return to the participants. Chain letters are a form of gambling, and sending them through the mail (or delivering them in person or by computer, but mailing money to participate) violates Title 18, United States Code, Section 1302, the Postal Lottery Statute.http://www.usps.com/postalinspectors/fraud/chainlet.htm

It also asserts that "[r]egardless of what technology is used to advance the scheme, if the mail is used at any step along the way, it is still illegal."Ibid. The U.S. Postal Inspection Service asserts the mathematical impossibility that all participants will be winners, as well as the possibilities that:

• participants may fail to send money to the first person listed, and
• the perpetrator may have listed himself multiple times under different addresses and names, thus ensuring that all monies go to the same person.Ibid.

MMF parodies

The chain letters follow a rigidly predefined format or template with minor variations (such as claiming to be from a retired lawyer or claiming to be selling "reports" in order to attempt to make the scheme appear lawful). They quickly became repetitive, causing them to be bait for widespread satire or parody. For example, one parody claimed to be the first such chain letter http://www.netfunny.com/rhf/jokes/98/Mar/makeclubs.html saying that palæontologists recently deciphered a statement painted on a cave wall that begins "MAKE SPIKY CLUBS FAST!!!"

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